Part 23
Nobody moved.
The apartment felt frozen in place.
My mother sat clutching the edge of the table. My father stood halfway between the living room and the front door, pale and shaking.
The voice came again.
Calm.
Patient.
Almost friendly.
“Mr. Washington. We know your daughter is there.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
My father looked at me.
And I realized something terrifying.
He wasn’t surprised they knew.
He was surprised they came this quickly.
There was a difference.
A huge difference.
The knock sounded again.
Three measured taps.
No anger.
No urgency.
The confidence of someone who knew the outcome already belonged to them.
My mother whispered, “Call the police.”
I already had my phone in my hand.
Then my father grabbed my wrist.
“No.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“No police.”
“Dad—”
“They won’t help.”
The certainty in his voice frightened me.
Not because he sounded emotional.
Because he sounded experienced.
Like he’d seen this before.
Outside, the man waited.
No pounding.
No threats.
Just patience.
My father slowly approached the door.
I stepped in front of him.
“No.”
His eyes met mine.
For a moment I saw the father I remembered.
Not the founder.
Not the liar.
Just my father.
Tired.
Scared.
Human.
“Jada.”
“What?”
“If they came themselves…”
He swallowed.
“…then running is already too late.”
The words hung in the air.
Then the doorbell rang.
Once.
My mother jumped.
I felt my own pulse hammering.
Finally, my father opened the door.
A man stood outside.
Mid-fifties.
Gray suit.
No weapon visible.
No badge.
No security team.
Nothing dramatic.
He looked like an accountant.
Or a professor.
Or someone’s uncle.
Which somehow made him more unsettling.
“Good morning, Vernon.”
My father looked sick.
The man smiled politely.
Then his eyes shifted to me.
“Jada Washington.”
Not a question.
A greeting.
Like he’d been expecting this meeting for years.
“I’ve heard remarkable things about you.”
I didn’t answer.
The man extended his hand.
“I’m Daniel Mercer.”
I ignored it.
His smile didn’t change.
“Fair enough.”
He stepped inside without being invited.
That bothered me.
Not because it was rude.
Because he acted like permission didn’t matter.
My father sat down heavily.
Daniel looked around the apartment.
Then nodded slightly.
“You’ve kept a low profile.”
My father laughed bitterly.
“You call this low profile?”
Daniel ignored the comment.
His attention shifted to me.
“You’ve caused quite a bit of disruption.”
“Good.”
The smile returned.
“Yes.”
To my surprise, he sounded sincere.
Daniel sat across from us and folded his hands.
For several moments, nobody spoke.
Then he said:
“Evelyn made a mistake.”
The room went still.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Daniel’s expression darkened slightly.
“Unavailable.”
Not dead.
Not missing.
Unavailable.
Interesting.
“You replaced her.”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
“I succeeded her.”
Different words.
Same meaning.
Or maybe not.
I wasn’t sure.
Daniel continued.
“Evelyn believed the system could be controlled.”
“Couldn’t it?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Certain.
Absolute.
For the first time, Daniel looked tired.
“Nothing that large can ever be controlled.”
He leaned back.
“Only managed.”
I hated how reasonable he sounded.
I hated it because people like him survive by sounding reasonable.
Then he did something unexpected.
He pulled a folder from his briefcase.
And slid it across the table toward me.
My name was on the cover.
My stomach dropped.
I opened it.
The first page was a school photograph.
Age ten.
Second page.
Science competition.
Age fourteen.
Third page.
Scholarship interview.
Age seventeen.
Fourth page.
University orientation.
Age eighteen.
The room started spinning.
Every major moment of my life.
Documented.
Cataloged.
Filed.
My mother gasped.
My father closed his eyes.
Daniel watched me quietly.
“They really did choose you,” I whispered.
Nobody answered.
Because nobody needed to.
The evidence sat in my hands.
Real.
Physical.
Undeniable.
“How long?”
My voice sounded hollow.
Daniel answered.
“Seventeen years.”
I felt sick.
Seventeen years.
Someone had been tracking my life for seventeen years.
My achievements.
My education.
My potential.
My future.
Like I was a project.
Not a person.
“Why?”
Daniel considered the question.
Then gave an answer I wasn’t expecting.
“Because you were exceptional.”
I laughed.
A sharp, humorless sound.
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
He seemed genuinely puzzled.
“It’s simply the truth.”
I slammed the folder shut.
“Get out.”
Daniel remained calm.
“You haven’t heard why I’m here.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.”
And the worst part?
He was right.
I did care.
Because answers are a dangerous addiction.
Once you start finding them, it’s hard to stop.
Daniel looked at my father.
Then back at me.
“The organization is changing.”
I said nothing.
“Rapidly.”
Still nothing.
“Some people believe expansion should continue.”
A pause.
“Others disagree.”
Politics.
Power struggles.
Internal conflict.
The oldest story in human history.
Daniel continued.
“You’ve become important.”
I almost laughed again.
“Why?”
His answer chilled me.
“Because both sides want you.”
The apartment became silent.
My father stared at the floor.
My mother looked confused.
I felt cold.
“What sides?”
Daniel’s gaze settled on mine.
And for the first time all morning…
His confidence slipped.
Just slightly.
Enough for me to notice.
“The people who built the machine.”
A pause.
“And the people trying to take it over.”
Every instinct I had started screaming.
Because suddenly this wasn’t about exposure anymore.
It wasn’t even about survival.
It was about succession.
Control.
Power.
Something much bigger.
Then Daniel said the one thing I never expected.
“We need your help.”
I stared at him.
Then laughed.
Actually laughed.
Longer this time.
Louder.
Because after everything…
After the fraud.
The surveillance.
The kidnapping.
The lies.
The manipulation.
They wanted my help.
When I finally stopped laughing, Daniel wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s your answer?”
I looked at the folder containing seventeen years of my life.
At my father.
At my mother.
At the man sitting across from me.
Then I gave him the only answer I could.
“No.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
As if he’d expected it.
As if it was part of the process.
Then he stood.
And before leaving, he placed a small key on the table.
Old brass.
No markings.
No label.
No explanation.
“What’s that?”
Daniel paused at the door.
“The reason your father stayed alive.”
The room froze.
My father looked up sharply.
True fear crossed his face.
Daniel met my eyes one last time.
Then said:
“Inside is the one thing nobody was supposed to inherit.”
And with that, he walked out.
Leaving the key behind.
And leaving us with a question that suddenly felt more dangerous than any answer we’d uncovered so far.
Part 24
The key sat on the table for nearly ten minutes.
Nobody touched it.
Nobody spoke.
It was ridiculous, really.
A small piece of brass no longer than my finger.
Yet somehow it dominated the room.
My mother stared at it like it might explode.
My father stared at it like it already had.
That reaction told me everything.
Whatever the key opened…
He knew.
And he had hoped never to see it again.
Finally, I broke the silence.
“What does it open?”
My father didn’t answer.
“Dad.”
Nothing.
“Vernon.”
My mother rarely used his first name.
The sound of it made him flinch.
Slowly, he looked up.
His eyes were wet.
Not crying.
Close.
“The archive.”
The word landed heavily.
Archive.
Not vault.
Not safe.
Archive.
A place where things are preserved.
Remembered.
Stored.
That was somehow worse.
I picked up the key.
It felt ordinary.
Cheap, even.
The kind of key that shouldn’t matter.
The kind of key people lose in couch cushions.
“Where is it?”
My father swallowed.
“Indiana.”
“Where in Indiana?”
Silence.
Then:
“Under the church.”
My mother blinked.
“What church?”
My father looked ashamed.
“St. Matthew’s.”
I frowned.
The name meant nothing to me.
Then realization struck.
St. Matthew’s wasn’t just a church.
It was the church.
The church.
The one from my childhood.
The one where my parents volunteered every weekend.
The one where community drives were organized.
The one where people donated clothes, food, money, and trust.
My stomach turned.
“There’s an archive under a church?”
My father nodded.
“Built twenty-one years ago.”
“What’s inside?”
His answer came immediately.
“Everything.”
The room fell silent again.
Because everybody knows the difference between records and everything.
Everything means secrets.
Everything means leverage.
Everything means history.
Everything means danger.
I looked at the key.
Then at him.
“What kind of everything?”
My father laughed once.
A sad sound.
“Enough to destroy careers.”
Pause.
“Governments.”
Longer pause.
“Possibly countries.”
My mother gasped.
I stared at him.
And for the first time, I wondered if maybe he wasn’t exaggerating.
Not because of the archive itself.
Because of the people connected to it.
Twenty-two years.
Judges.
Senators.
Billionaires.
Executives.
Trusts.
Shell companies.
If someone documented all of that…
The archive could be worth more than money.
It could be worth power.
My phone buzzed.
Reynolds.
I answered immediately.
“Tell me you’re somewhere safe.”
Interesting greeting.
“Why?”
Silence.
Then:
“Daniel Mercer is dead.”
The room disappeared.
“What?”
“Thirty-seven minutes ago.”
I looked at the apartment door.
The same door Daniel had walked through.
The same man who had sat across from us.
The same man who left the key.
“No.”
“Car accident.”
I closed my eyes.
“No.”
Because it wasn’t a car accident.
We both knew it.
Reynolds continued.
“Brake failure.”
Of course.
“Witnesses?”
“None.”
Of course.
“Security footage?”
“Missing.”
Of course.
I slowly sat down.
Daniel Mercer had left this apartment less than an hour ago.
Now he was dead.
Which meant one thing.
Someone knew he came here.
And someone didn’t like what he said.
The realization hit all of us at the same time.
My mother started crying.
My father looked physically ill.
And I suddenly understood why he feared the archive.
Not because of what it contained.
Because of what people would do to keep it closed.
Reynolds spoke again.
“There’s more.”
My stomach sank.
“There always is.”
“We found Evelyn Price.”
My pulse jumped.
“Alive?”
Long pause.
“No.”
The room went completely silent.
Not Evelyn too.
Not the woman who built the machine.
Not the woman who warned me.
Not the woman who gave me the flash drive.
Reynolds’ voice softened.
“She died sometime last night.”
I looked at the key in my hand.
Daniel dead.
Evelyn dead.
Within hours of each other.
Two people at the highest levels of the organization.
Gone.
Not arrested.
Not exposed.
Gone.
Like pieces being removed from a board.
And suddenly the situation looked very different.
This wasn’t succession anymore.
This was a purge.
Someone was cleaning house.
My father whispered something.
So quietly I almost missed it.
“They started.”
I looked up.
“What?”
His face had gone pale.
“The second generation.”
Every hair on my arms stood up.
“What does that mean?”
My father stared at the key.
Then at me.
Then finally answered.
“We built the system.”
A pause.
“They inherited it.”
Longer pause.
“And now they’re taking ownership.”
The room felt colder.
Because I suddenly understood something awful.
The founders were old.
Aging.
Retiring.
Dying.
But organizations survive.
Power survives.
Money survives.
The children inherit.
The protégés inherit.
The next generation inherits.
And apparently…
The next generation had decided they no longer needed the founders.
Or anyone who remembered how things started.
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then I answered.
Silence.
Breathing.
Then a young woman’s voice.
Much younger than Jessica.
Much younger than Daniel.
Much younger than Evelyn.
“Hello, Jada.”
I felt my pulse quicken.
“Who is this?”
A soft laugh.
Confident.
Controlled.
Familiar somehow, even though I’d never heard it before.
“You’ve been looking for the wrong people.”
The voice sounded amused.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Who are you?”
Another laugh.
Then:
“My name is Olivia Blackwell.”
The surname hit immediately.
Blackwell.
Arthur Blackwell.
The billionaire.
The mascot.
The face.
His daughter.
My stomach dropped.
Because suddenly Daniel’s warning made perfect sense.
The second generation.
The heirs.
The people born into the machine instead of building it.
Olivia continued.
“You should visit the archive.”
I said nothing.
“Open it.”
Still nothing.
Then her voice lowered.
Almost excited.
“Because when you see what’s inside…”
A pause.
“…you’ll finally understand why they picked you.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone.
The room was silent.
The key sat in my hand.
Indiana.
The church.
The archive.
And now a billionaire’s daughter wanted me to find it.
Which meant whatever was inside wasn’t just history.
It was the prize.
And everyone still alive was racing toward it.
Part 25
Nobody slept that night.
Not me.
Not my father.
Not my mother.
By dawn, the key sat in the center of my kitchen table surrounded by empty coffee cups and unanswered questions.
The archive.
Indiana.
St. Matthew’s Church.
The prize.
Every road suddenly led there.
And that bothered me.
Because in investigations, when everyone wants you moving in the same direction, it usually means you’re being herded.
My father seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“They want you to go.”
I looked at him.
“Daniel wanted me to go.”
“He also died an hour later.”
Fair point.
My mother wrapped her hands around a mug she wasn’t drinking from.
“Then don’t go.”
Simple.
Reasonable.
Probably smart.
Unfortunately, smart and necessary aren’t always the same thing.
I looked at the flash drive.
The trust records.
The surveillance photo.
The Nashville operation.
The dead founders.
The missing investigator.
The second generation.
Every answer pointed toward the archive.
Or at least toward whatever people believed was inside it.
Then Reynolds called.
And removed any illusion that staying home was still an option.
“Jada.”
His voice was tense.
“We have a problem.”
“Define problem.”
“The church burned down.”
The room froze.
My father stood so quickly his chair nearly tipped backward.
“What?”
Reynolds continued.
“Three hours ago.”
My pulse exploded.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“St. Matthew’s?”
“Yes.”
The exact church.
The exact location.
The exact place we had planned to visit.
A fire.
Just hours after Daniel handed me the key.
Coincidence was officially dead.
“Damage?”
“Significant.”
I grabbed my coat.
“I’m coming.”
Two hours later, we crossed into Indiana.
The drive felt endless.
My father rode beside me in silence.
My mother sat in the back seat staring out the window.
Nobody wanted to say what we were all thinking.
If the archive existed…
Someone had just tried to destroy it.
The church sat on a hill overlooking a small town.
Or what remained of it.
Fire trucks.
Police tape.
News vans.
Smoke still drifting into the morning sky.
The sanctuary roof had collapsed.
Windows shattered.
Charred beams jutted from the structure like broken bones.
I parked.
Nobody moved.
Then my father whispered:
“Too late.”
Not grief.
Not sadness.
Certainty.
Like he’d expected this.
I stepped out of the car.
The smell hit immediately.
Burned wood.
Ash.
Wet debris.
The scent of history being erased.
Reynolds met us near the tape line.
“You need to see something.”
He led us around the side of the building.
Past the ruined fellowship hall.
Past the destroyed classrooms.
Past blackened brick walls.
Then he stopped.
And pointed.
The ground behind the church had collapsed.
Not from fire.
From something underneath.
A sinkhole.
Large.
Fresh.
Exposing a concrete structure buried beneath the church.
My father stopped breathing.
The archive.
Or part of it.
The entrance had been hidden underground for more than two decades.
Now it was visible to everyone.
Reynolds looked at me.
“The fire didn’t expose it.”
I frowned.
“What did?”
“An explosion.”
The words hit hard.
Not an accident.
Not faulty wiring.
Not negligence.
Someone had planted explosives.
The fire was cover.
The goal had been underground.
The archive.
A federal investigator approached carrying photographs.
“Look at these.”
I took them.
Security footage.
Grainy.
Nighttime.
Several individuals entering church property shortly before the explosion.
Faces mostly hidden.
Except one.
I froze.
Because I recognized her immediately.
Olivia Blackwell.
Arthur Blackwell’s daughter.
The woman who called me.
The woman who wanted me here.
The woman who told me to open the archive.
My stomach tightened.
Why destroy something you wanted opened?
Unless…
I stared at the photographs.
Then at the exposed underground structure.
Then suddenly it clicked.
She wasn’t destroying it.
She was opening it.
My pulse quickened.
The explosion wasn’t meant to erase the archive.
It was meant to reveal it.
And that meant whatever was inside couldn’t be reached any other way.
My father looked sick.
“She’s insane.”
“No.”
I kept staring at the photographs.
“She wants something.”
Reynolds nodded.
“Question is what.”
The answer arrived twenty minutes later.
Inside the exposed structure.
A recovery team finally gained access through a damaged concrete corridor.
The place looked more like a bunker than an archive.
Steel doors.
Reinforced walls.
Independent generators.
Security systems decades ahead of their time.
Someone spent serious money building this.
One investigator emerged carrying a metal box.
Then another.
Then another.
Hundreds of documents.
Thousands.
Records.
Photographs.
Financial ledgers.
Video tapes.
Storage drives.
Decades of secrets.
Enough evidence to destroy half the people connected to the network.
Then a technician ran toward us.
Breathless.
Excited.
“There’s a vault.”
Everyone turned.
“A vault inside the archive.”
Interesting.
Because archives preserve information.
Vaults protect valuables.
Not the same thing.
Not even close.
The technician continued.
“We can’t open it.”
My father looked away immediately.
That reaction didn’t escape me.
“You know what’s in there.”
He didn’t answer.
“Dad.”
Silence.
“Dad.”
Finally he spoke.
Very quietly.
“Not what.”
I frowned.
“What?”
His eyes met mine.
And for the first time all day…
I saw genuine terror.
“Who.”
The world seemed to stop.
Not what.
Who.
Someone inside the vault.
Or someone connected to it.
Something alive.
Something hidden.
Something protected for twenty-two years.
Reynolds stared.
“What are you talking about?”
My father swallowed.
Then whispered:
“The original beneficiary.”
Nobody understood.
Including me.
The technician interrupted.
“There’s something else.”
We turned.
He held up a document recovered from the vault door.
Protected inside a waterproof case.
Untouched by fire.
Untouched by time.
A single page.
At the top:
PROJECT SENTINEL
Below that:
SUCCESSION PROTOCOL
And underneath…
One name.
My name.
JADA WASHINGTON.
The paper slipped from the technician’s hands.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Because suddenly the question wasn’t why they had been watching me.
The question was why my name had been written into the future of the organization before I even knew it existed.
And deep down…
I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer anymore.
Part 26
The world narrowed to a single sheet of paper.
My name.
Typed in black ink.
Centered beneath the words:
SUCCESSION PROTOCOL.
For a moment, nobody moved.
The recovery team.
The federal investigators.
Reynolds.
My parents.
Everyone stared at the document as if it might suddenly explain itself.
It didn’t.
My father looked like he was about to be sick.
That terrified me more than the paper.
Because Vernon Washington had spent years hiding things.
Lying.
Manipulating.
Deflecting.
But this?
This seemed to genuinely frighten him.
I picked up the document.
My hands were steady.
Years of investigations had trained that into me.
Inside, my pulse was chaos.
The page contained only a few paragraphs.
No signatures.
No dates.
No letterhead.
Just instructions.
Clinical.
Cold.
Structured.
The kind of language committees write when they want responsibility to disappear.
I read silently.
Then read it again.
And the second time, the meaning hit harder.
The protocol wasn’t appointing me.
It wasn’t selecting me.
It wasn’t recommending me.
It was preparing for me.
As if my eventual involvement had been expected.
Planned.
Accounted for.
Like a contingency.
Like insurance.
I looked up.
“What is this?”
Nobody answered.
Finally Reynolds took the page.
His eyes moved across the text.
Then stopped.
Then narrowed.
“What the hell?”
Not a helpful answer.
“Read it.”
He handed it back.
I pointed to a paragraph halfway down.
“Read it out loud.”
For several seconds he hesitated.
Then he did.
“In the event that primary leadership structures become compromised, succession review shall transfer to Candidate Seven. Candidate Seven has demonstrated the required analytical profile, independent judgment, financial expertise, and resistance to coercion.”
Silence.
My stomach turned.
Candidate Seven.
Me.
Not daughter.
Not person.
Candidate.
A classification.
An evaluation.
A file.
My father looked away.
That tiny reaction told me he already knew.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
I stepped toward him.
“How long?”
His eyes closed.
I already hated the answer.
“How long did you know?”
The silence stretched.
Then:
“Since you were nineteen.”
The air left my lungs.
Nineteen.
College.
Scholarships.
Internships.
The years he’d just admitted they started watching me.
My mother stared at him.
“You knew?”
He nodded once.
She slapped him.
Hard.
The sound echoed through the ruined church grounds.
Nobody reacted.
Not even him.
Because frankly, he’d earned it.
“You knew?” she repeated.
Tears streamed down her face.
“Our daughter?”
He couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Yes.”
My mother backed away like he’d become a stranger.
Maybe he had.
Maybe all of us had.
A federal technician approached at a jog.
“Detective.”
Reynolds turned.
“What?”
“We opened the vault.”
Every conversation died instantly.
The vault.
The thing hidden beneath twenty-two years of secrets.
The thing important enough for Olivia Blackwell to expose.
The thing important enough for someone to try to destroy.
My father whispered a curse.
The technician looked confused.
“Sir?”
My father ignored him.
He looked at me.
And for the first time since I’d known him…
He seemed genuinely helpless.
“Don’t go in there.”
That was new.
My father spent my childhood giving orders.
Not warnings.
I stared at him.
“Why?”
His answer came immediately.
Because he’d apparently been waiting twenty years to say it.
“Because once you know…”
His voice cracked.
“…you can’t unknow.”
The technician shifted nervously.
“Miss Washington?”
I looked at him.
“Yeah?”
“The vault contains personal records.”
Not surprising.
“Okay.”
He swallowed.
“Thousands of them.”
That got my attention.
“Thousands?”
He nodded.
“Mostly children.”
The world stopped.
Children.
Not politicians.
Not executives.
Not donors.
Children.
My pulse thundered.
“What kind of records?”
The technician looked uncomfortable.
Very uncomfortable.
“Evaluations.”
A chill crawled down my spine.
“Evaluations?”
“Academic.”
Pause.
“Psychological.”
Longer pause.
“Behavioral.”
The silence became unbearable.
Then he added:
“Some dating back twenty-five years.”
No.
No no no.
My mind immediately went somewhere awful.
Schools.
Scholarships.
Testing programs.
Youth foundations.
Community outreach.
The exact environments Project Sentinel had touched for decades.
I looked toward the exposed underground entrance.
The darkness beyond suddenly felt different.
Not a vault.
Not an archive.
A database.
A human database.
My father sat heavily on a nearby stone wall.
Defeated.
Completely defeated.
“I told them no.”
Nobody spoke.
He wasn’t talking to us anymore.
He was talking to himself.
Or maybe to ghosts.
“They wanted predictive recruitment.”
The words landed like bricks.
My stomach dropped.
Predictive recruitment.
Not finding talent.
Tracking it.
Monitoring it.
Cultivating it.
The way corporations identify future executives.
The way sports teams identify future stars.
The way intelligence agencies identify future assets.
Except this wasn’t one organization.
This was an entire network.
A twenty-two-year network.
My mother looked horrified.
“They tracked children?”
My father nodded.
Slowly.
Painfully.
“Not all children.”
That somehow wasn’t better.
“The exceptional ones.”
The phrase made me feel sick.
Exceptional.
Gifted.
Promising.
Potential.
Words that sound flattering until someone weaponizes them.
A recovery worker emerged from the bunker carrying a cardboard file box.
He looked stunned.
“What is it?” Reynolds asked.
The worker set the box down.
Opened it.
Inside were hundreds of folders.
Each labeled with a name.
Each containing photographs.
Reports.
Evaluations.
Predictions.
Lives reduced to paperwork.
Then I saw one folder.
Near the top.
A familiar label.
JADA WASHINGTON.
My hands went cold.
The file looked thick.
Very thick.
Thicker than most of the others.
Someone had spent years building it.
Watching.
Recording.
Assessing.
I reached toward it.
Then stopped.
Because another folder sat directly beneath mine.
One I’d never expected to see.
DAVID CHEN.
The world tilted.
Not just me.
David too.
Maybe others.
Many others.
How many?
Dozens?
Hundreds?
Thousands?
I stared at the box.
Then at the bunker.
Then at the succession document.
And suddenly a horrifying possibility entered my mind.
What if Project Sentinel wasn’t choosing leaders?
What if it was manufacturing them?
The thought hit so hard I nearly dropped the file.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Again.
I almost ignored it.
Almost.
Instead, I answered.
Silence.
Then Olivia Blackwell’s voice.
Calm.
Satisfied.
“Did you find it?”
I looked at the folders.
At the vault.
At my name.
At the decades of surveillance.
“Find what?”
A soft laugh.
Then:
“The truth.”
My grip tightened.
“You knew.”
“Of course.”
“You blew up the church.”
“No.”
Interesting.
Not a denial.
Not really.
Then Olivia said something that froze every nerve in my body.
“Open your file.”
I looked down at the folder bearing my name.
My pulse pounded.
“Why?”
The answer came instantly.
Because she’d been waiting for this moment.
Because she’d wanted this moment.
Because the entire chain of events might have been leading here.
“Because, Jada…”
A pause.
Then:
“…you weren’t Candidate Seven.”
The world stopped.
“What?”
Another pause.
Long enough to hurt.
Then Olivia whispered:
“You were Candidate One.”
The line went dead.
And suddenly the folder in my hands felt heavier than anything I’d ever carried…………………………………..
